


As One Does Sickness Over

by BroadwayBaggins



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hallucinations, Illnesses, Season 2 Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-29 00:47:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8469379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BroadwayBaggins/pseuds/BroadwayBaggins
Summary: Speculation for Season 2 based on the new trailer. Mary becomes ill, and the past comes back.





	

**Author's Note:**

> That clip of Mary on the stairs in the trailer did things to me. Title comes from Emily Dickinson.

Jedediah Foster has always prized himself on his instincts. Once, when he and Ezra were boys, he was suddenly struck by a bad feeling as they walked down to their favorite fishing spot by the river. He had held Ezra back, his eyes darting back and forth in search of any sign of danger, while his brother whined and fidgeted and begged to be set free. Jed’s premonition, if one could call it that, was proven true a few minutes later when a mad dog crept from the underbrush, foaming at the mouth and ready to attack, and he and Ezra had raced home, shaken and scared but otherwise unharmed. As a medical student, his instincts had allowed him to see what others might overlook, and when wore broke out, his instinct to stay loyal to his country had won out over the values and rules he had been raised with. Jedediah Foster had learned to trust his instincts over the years, and as he looked up towards the staircase of Mansion House that sunny November morning, he felt that familiar sensation again that something was not quite right.

He sees her a moment later.

She is a vision in white on the landing, her frothy white nightgown falling to her ankles and her hair hanging freely down her back. He feels a jolt at seeing her so disheveled--it is a sight only a husband should see, he thinks stupidly as he turns to her, taking in her bare feet, the wild look in her eyes. “Miss Phinney?” he asks hesitantly, reverting back to the old formality at the sight of her so unkempt, so unlike herself, so...private that for a moment he does not know what to do. What has caused her to appear in public in such a state? Whispers are beginning to rise all around them, and as Mary turns to face him but does not seem to see him, Jed’s feeling of dread only deepens. 

“Mary, whatever is the matter?”

There is movement to his right, and a clatter as Emma Green drops a tray of instruments to the floor. “Oh, Nurse Mary!” she cries, rushing up in a flutter of skirts. “What are you doing out of bed? I told you to rest!”

“What’s wrong with her?” Jed demands as he steps closer as well, sees the pink spots on Mary’s cheeks, the too-bright look in her eyes.

“She fainted last night, Doctor Foster. While the two of us were sitting up with Sergeant Buckley. She said she was only a little tired, but she looked so pale, and she was burning up even then. I don’t know how she was still on her feet, to be sure. I sent her straight to bed and said I would check on her in the morning, but...” she trails off, looking stricken. “I guess I forgot. I didn’t know she was in such a bad way.”

“Why was I not informed?” Jed demands, feeling somehow betrayed. He wasn’t even aware Miss Green had stayed late last night.

“She told me not to, Doctor Foster. She said she didn’t want to worry you.”

Damn stubborn woman, to put his needs before her own! His sweet Mary, what had she been thinking?

“Come, help me get her back to her room.” Already a crowd has formed, and she is still blissfully unaware. Matron Brannon has appeared as well, and approaches Mary softly as the younger woman creeps down the stairs like a child at Christmas.

“Mary?” Jed ventures quietly.

She turns, and he pretends he cannot  see the silhouette of her body beneath her nightgown as the morning sun passes through the fabric. She smiles as radiantly as a bride, but she is looking somewhere over Jed’s left shoulder, not at him.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she whispers.

Jed’s brow furrows. “What?” She is so pale, weak and shaking with fever, so unlike the Mary he knows...

She sinks down onto a step, clutching the bannister, her eyes focused on something she cannot see. "Gustav," she whispers, and his heart clenches as he realizes that it is her phantom husband she imagines she sees, coming to her now in her illness. She reaches out a trembling hand towards a figure who is not there, and Jed remembers with shocking clarity a soldier just a few days ago who suffered much the same predicament. Shaking and burning with fever, he had called out to a mother that he had told Mary only hours earlier had died when he was ten. Within the hour, Private Nicholls had joined her in Heaven.

_Not Mary. Please, God, no._

“Gustav, Gustav my darling, _ich liebe dich, ich liebe..._ ” She's babbling now in her delirium, half in English and half in German, her fevered eyes bright. She does not notice when he steps in front of her. He pauses, shooting the other women in the vicinity a dark look, daring them to mock her in her current state or cast a judgmental eye her way. But even Anne Hastings looks grim, and Jed realizes that she too knows just how serious Mary's condition is. 

Slowly, Jed kneels before her, cupping her flushed face in his hands. Her skin is burning hot to the touch, but he does not pull away.  
  
"Mary," he says softly, willing the visions to leave her, quietly begging her to come back to him and leave the fevered ghosts of the past behind. "Mary."

And then, so that only she can hear, "Come back to me, my love."

She blinks once at his words, then twice, and then her glassy eyes come to rest on him at last. Jed breathes a quiet sigh of relief. 

"Jedediah?" she croaks through cracked lips. 

Slowly, he smiles, saying a silent prayer of thanks that she is able to recognize him in this state. "I'm here, Mary. Come, we must get you back upstairs. You need to rest."

She swallows with difficulty, shakes her head, her lips trying valiantly to form the words. She still looks dazed, but some of her old stubbornness has returned to her eyes. "The boys, downstairs, they--"

"They will be fine with Miss Green and Miss Hastings and Mr. Diggs to care for them. You must concentrate on getting well yourself, Mary." He frowns, smoothing back a lock of hair from where it lies plastered to her sweaty forehead. "We need you, to be sure, but we need you to be well first. Please, let us take care of you now."

She stares at him, those beautiful eyes wide and childlike, her breathing labored as fever chills begin to strike her. "Doctor's orders, Nurse Mary," he says, a bit more sternly, and out of the corner of his eye he swears he sees a smile cross Emma Green's worried face.  
  
Slowly, Mary nods, and Jed turns to Emma. "Help me take her upstairs, will you?" he asks, wanting to get her back into bed while she is still lucid. Gently, they each take her by an elbow and bring her to her feet, where she stands on shaky legs like a newborn colt. Sister Isabella materializes beside them--that girl is like a hummingbird, flitting about silently to where she is needed most--and promises to bring up some tea and broth for Mary to sip. Matron Brannon leaves to fetch something to bring down the fever, and Anne Hastings marches off to the wards as he and Emma gently lead Mary up the stairs, She clutches onto Jed’s hand with her clammy one, still shaking like a leaf. “I thought I saw...”

“Shhh, shhh, it’s all right,” he soothes. “We’re going to get you well, Mary, I promise.”

They find her bedsheets damp with sweat, and her pitcher of water empty. While Emma goes to fetch fresh linens and Jed’s medical bag, Jed gently scoops Mary up in his arms and carries her to his room, despite her feeble protests. “You’ll be far more comfortable in here anyway,” he says definitively, closing the door quietly behind them.

“People will talk,” she whispers, her head lolling on his shoulder.

“Let them.”

He lays her down in the bed as if laying down a sleeping child he does not want to disturb. She kicks the covers off at first, then pulls them straight up to her chin when another round of chills strikes her. Jed pours water into a tin cup and holds it to her lips so that she can drink, which she does so greedily for a few seconds then turns away.

“What a fright I must look,” she murmurs, more to herself than to him.

“You look beautiful as always,” he assures her. 

“And Miss Hastings? Has she got her victory at last, seeing me reduced to this?”

“I believe she’s as worried as any of us are. Your fever is dangerously high, Mary. You’ve got to rest and fight and get well.”

She nods, her eyelids drooping. He feels her forehead again, frowning at the heat, and works on soaking a washcloth in cold water to lay on her burning skin.

“Do you remember when I cared for you?” her tiny voice asks. “With the morphine? I stayed for days. Do you remember?”

Her question, no doubt also brought on by the fever--for how could either of them forget that time?--tugs on Jed’s heart in a way he does not expect. “Of course I do, Mary,” he assures her. “And now it is my turn to take care of you.” He turns away for a moment, and when he looks at her again, her eyes are open.

"Will you stay with me, Jed?" She whispers, looking at him imploringly, her eyes huge and bright with fever.  Jed knows she is thinking of her husband, of how she was not there in his final moments. She is thinking of all the boys downstairs who died afraid and alone, miles from anyone who knew or loved them. She is thinking of them, and wanting to spare herself that same fate.

He smiles then, leaning down and brushing his lips across her damp forehead. "Of course, Mary. I'm not going anywhere."


End file.
